The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for automatically removing and collecting in an orderly manner fully-spun cops from a plurality of textile ring spinning machines and, more particularly, to such a method and apparatus adapted for ring spinning machines of the type wherein cops are doffed simultaneously fromm all spinning stations of a machine and conveyed by a transport arrangement longitudinally along the ring spinning machine to one longitudinal end thereof for collection.
In such ring spinning machines, a plurality of spinning stations are located along the length of the machine at each opposite longitudinal side thereof, with a transport arrangement preferably in the form of a moving belt-type conveyor extending along the length of each side of the machine to the aforesaid longitudinal end thereof. As disclosed in West German Patentschrift DE No. 21 38 926, it is known to provide a stationary device at the longitudinal end of such a ring spinning machine in association with each of the two conveyors thereof for grasping and removing the doffed cops in groups as they are delivered to the machine end by the conveyor and then transferring the grasped cops to a movable storage device. In a known variation of this arrangement, the groups of cops removed from the conveyors are inserted onto storage plates having cop supporting pins which plates are moved manually by means of a cart under the stationary cop removal device. Such cop removal devices are considerably expensive and therefore cannot be justified in many instances since the stationary devices are utilized for only short intermittent periods when a doffing operation occurs at the associated ring spinning machine and otherwise remain inactive for relatively long periods between doffings.
It is also known to utilize a movable cart to travel transversely with respect to the ends of a plurality of ring spinning machines to selectively deliver an automatic cop exchanging device to any individual ring spinning machine for traveling movement therealong to progressively perform at each spinning station a doffing and donning operation, i.e. removal of a fully-spun cop at each spinning station and replacement thereof with an empty spinning tube. This type of device is representatively disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 60-119233. This device is also relatively expensive, while additionally suffering the disadvantage of requiring a considerable amount of time to accomplish a complete doffing and donning operation on a ring spinning machine.